Why Networking Matters?

• Author: Oprica, R.
• Position: Ph.D. Candidate, Sociology, National School for Political and Administrative Studies
• Pages: 71-76

Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov • Vol. 5 (54) No. 1 - 2012

Series VII: Social Sciences • Law

WHY NETWORKING MATTERS?

Romulus OPRICA1

Abstract: The business bureaucracy, in general, makes the majority of the

managers (both top and middle management) neglect a key matter of success

(both personal and businesslike): networking. The present paper wishes to

raise a series of questions re garding Herminia Ibarra’s theory referring to

the networking styles of managers on the basis of her own research on a

series of managers included i n the „100 top young managers” catalogue of

Business Magazin.

Key words: social-capital, networks, trust, success.

1 Ph.D. Candidate, Sociology, National School for Political and Administrative Studies.

1. Introduction

Both sociologists and economists

recognize the validity of the social capital -

wealth dependency [7, 11, 12, 16] which

means that a manager’s rich social-capital

can bring along a more rapid development

of the company he manages.

But the studies on managers (employees)

show that the majority succeed in neither

efficiently developing nor using the social-

capital they possess [8].

Those who succeed are simply those who

have internalised, rationalised (in Parson’s

terms, 1951) [10] the necessity of

networking [1].

One great study on managers [8] has

proved that, despite that social networks

generate trust (as p art of the social-capital)

and function as a lubricant of the economy

by generating small transaction costs, new

forms of cooperation and b usiness

opportunities, prosperity in general [4], the

majority of managers fail t o make constant

effort to ’’establish or reproduce social

relationships that are utilisable in the long

run” [2].

Ibarra and Hunter identify three types of

social networks that managers can have:

operational, personal and strategic.

For all managers, the operational

networks represent the daily routine, this

type of network being best represented in

the social-capital framework. But the

difference between the successful

managers and th e persons that remain

stuck in the middle-management is made

by the utilisation of the personal and

strategic networks. [8].

The operational network is the one that

helps them manage the d aily activities of

the company/ position; the personal type of

network increases personal development

and the third one, the strategic type ’’opens

their eyes’’ towards new directions and

business strategies both for t he company

and at the personal level.

While the managers studied by Ibarra

differentiated themselves by the ways and

the frequency in using the operational and

personal networks, almost everybody used

the strategic networks’ much under their

capacity; the real leaders learn to use the

strategic networks for strategic goals. [8]